How To Avoid The Dreaded Plateau

By Joel Phillip
Pride Fitness Columnist

A common sight in many gyms is people remaining the same without any change to their bodies despite the hard work and sweat they put out week after week. Often times, people don’t see results from the work they’re putting out in the gym because their workout is stale. They go in and do the same workout every time. This inevitably will lead to the dreaded plateau. At this point, all their efforts are in vain and time as well as money is wasted. What is even worse is that they may even be getting further away from their goal. They are lost on the proverbial treadmill; forever running but getting nowhere.

In order to avoid the plateau, it’s important to add variety to your workout. You should be changing up your workout every 3-4 weeks. Your body is very intelligent and adaptable so you need to confuse your body and muscles with fresh workouts and routines. Try changing the exercise routine; the order and types of exercises done for strength training. Adjust the intensity while doing cardio. It is best to vary the speed and intensity while doing cardio as opposed to maintaining a steady pace throughout the entire workout. Studies have proven that doing high intensity intervals training (H.I.I.T) burns more calories than regular steady state cardio. Not only does it make for a more interesting cardio session, you also continue to burn calories after the workout is over. The reason for this is that H.I.I.T has the added bonus of revving up your metabolism over the next 36 hours; something that doesn’t happen with regular cardio. With regular steady state cardio, you stop burning calories the moment you step off the machine.

A simple way to incorporate intervals into your workout is to have varying intensities within the cardio session. Have a faster more intense pace for one minute and following it up with a slower less intense pace for two minutes. This can be achieved on any piece of cardio equipment. If on a treadmill, dial up the speed of the belt or increase the incline to get the heart rate up. If on a bike or an elliptical, increase the resistance to accomplish the same goal. The slower pace acts as an active rest before you’re ready to go faster again.

Once a certain level of fitness is attained, one can adjust the work to rest ratios accordingly to suit one’s needs. In the example above, the rest is twice as long as the work phase. To further challenge yourself, try having a work phase as long as the rest phase; for instance, one minute of a faster pace followed by one minute of a slower pace.  Repeat this sequence over 15-20 minutes for a full interval workout. Although the overall time is less than traditional cardio, more calories are burned and the more calories that are burned the more fat that is burned. Before engaging in this type of cardio however, one should prepare themselves by building up an aerobic base with regular cardio that lasts at least 30 minutes. Six weeks of regular of regular cardio should precede the interval cardio to aid in recovery periods during the active rests.

Whatever you do, do not keep your workout stagnant or your results will also be stagnant. You need to challenge your body if you expect to see change; otherwise your body is just going to be doing everything that it’s used to doing already. Change your workout and make plateaus a thing of the past.

Joel Phillip is a certified personal trainer and certified strength and conditioning specialist. He has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise science from James Madison University in Virginia, USA which he attended on a four year soccer scholarship. He has over six years’ experience in the fitness industry and is currently training at the Fitness Institute. He also has experience working in the Gary Roberts High Performance Training Centre located within the gym. Joel can be contacted by email at nubeohpt@gmail.com.